With about 19 days to its primaries, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is still embroiled in internal crisis mostly connected with the modalities for conducting the primaries, particularly that of the presidency.
At its 55th meeting two weeks ago, the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had approved the timetable/ guidelines for the various elective positions in the country.
According to the timetable, the State Assembly primary election holds nationwide on January 3, 2010, while the Senate and House of Representatives primaries comes up at the federal constituency headquarters on January 5.
The governorship and presidential primaries hold on January 9 and 13th, respectively, while the names of the successful nominees will be forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on January 15th, which is the deadline given to all the 63 parties by the commission.
Besides, the NEC, which was attended by President Goodluck Jonathan and his deputy, Namadi Sambo and the National Assembly leadership, also approved different dates for the screening of all aspirants on the platform of the party to ascertain their eligibility to contest for the positions. It set aside some days for those aspirants dissatisfied with the outcomes of the screening as well as the results of the primaries to appeal against them before the party adopts the names.
All aspirants to the state assemblies and the governorship seats are to be screened on December 21 and 22 at the state capitals while the appeal will hold the following day. Similarly, aspirants to the two chambers of the National Assembly are to be screened on December 29 and 30 while appeals against the results will be heard on New Year eve.
The new timetable also says that the party will screen its presidential aspirants in Abuja on January 11, two days ahead of the primary election for that category. However, the presidential hopefuls, who may be dissatisfied with the outcome will also have the opportunity to appeal against it the following day before the special national convention where the party’s flag bearer is expected to emerge.
The timetable was evidently a product of minor adjustment on the earlier one approved by the NEC at its 53rd meeting last September. That timetable, which was set in anticipation that the general elections would hold in January, was reviewed when the National Assembly granted the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) more time to organise the elections.
As it was in September, the drawing of the recent timetable, subsequently approved by NEC a forth night ago, generated crisis, which almost shook the foundations of the party. Various blocks within the party tried to outdo each other in the quest to have the party leadership adopt their proposals on how the primaries should be conducted.
For instance, the 27 governors elected on the platform of the party wanted the governorship primary election held before the presidential primaries. The calculation was that if the presidential primary election was held first, Mr Jonathan, who himself is a presidential aspirant, could sway support against the governors who are seeking second terms in office. The position was at variance with that of the president who wanted the presidential primaries to be held first.
Evidently, the survival game was one of the reasons that accounted for the hurried adjournment of the 54th meeting of NEC on Tuesday December 14 to Thursday December 16, after about 20 minutes. This, it was thought would calm frayed nerves. But that hardly happened.
Knotty issues
But there were two other issues that reportedly forced the 54th NEC meeting to adjourn. One was the alleged altercation between the party Chairman, Okwesilieze Nwodo and the Governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime over the presence of the chairman of the dissolved executive committee of the party in the state, Vitalis Abba at the meeting.
The other issue was the alleged complaint by the chairmen of the party in the 36 states over their exclusion from NEC in a bill passed by the House of Representatives while further amending the Electoral Act. The proposal to amend the section to make all the federal lawmakers members of NEC had generated controversy with the governors and the state chairmen opposing it on the grounds that it would challenge their influence in the party. They also believed that Mr Jonathan influenced the amendment as a bargaining chip to get the lawmakers to support him during the primaries.
In any case, following the adjournment, the president and his deputy, Namadi Sambo met with the party governors, members of the party National Working Committee (NWC) led by Mr Nwodo, former national chairmen of the party, former and incumbent chairmen of the Board of Trustees and the leadership of the National Assembly who are members of the PDP.
At the meeting held at the Aso Rock Villa, a committee under the chairmanship of Tony Anenih was constituted to resolve the contentious issues. Membership of the committee included governors, lawmakers and members of the NWC. The recommendation of the committee went a long way to resolve the issues.
But on the same day, Mr Jonathan met with some PDP governors where they struck a deal to support each other, not only on the order of primaries but also on their respective ambitions. Besides, before the Thursday NEC meeting kicked off, the president, his deputy, the Senate President, David Mark and some leaders of the National Assembly, members of the NWC were holed up in Mr Nwodo’s office at the party secretariat where the issues were further deliberated upon and resolved.
When the meeting began at about 6.14 pm, about six hours behind schedule, both Messrs Jonathan and Nwodo, in their opening remarks, spoke on the unity of the party and the progress of the party. The meeting also approved the timetable/guidelines without any further rancour, which was why some 20 governors, immediately addressed a conference a few minutes after declaring their support for Mr Jonathan’s ambition, but which they said should be limited to a single term of four years apparently because of the controversial zoning arrangement which had engulfed the party for months now and which is still heating up the polity.
Curiously though, only a few days after the new timetable and guidelines were approved by the NEC, another crisis is building up. The major source of conflict was the delay in setting up the presidential screening panel less than three weeks to the primaries.
Although, two days after the NEC meeting, the party approved the gubernatorial screening panels in the six geo-political zones in the country as well as those of the state assembly congress in the 36 states,
which have already gone to work, it did not constitute panels to screen the gubernatorial and presidential aspirants, prompting some members of the party to become suspicious.
Only few days ago, the campaign outfit of Atiku Abubakar, complained that the delay in naming the panel to screen the four presidential aspirants portend danger for the successful conduct of the primaries.
“We urge the party to constitute this committee as quickly as possible so that party members and indeed the generality of Nigerians, will get to know who these individuals who will be discharging a tremendous obligation are, their moral integrity, uprightness and suitability for the job,” the campaign cor-ordinator, Ben Obi said.
Getting desperate
Although, the party did not officially respond to the issue immediately, sources say members of the NWC met several times during the week to consider names of those that should make up the panels, but could not agree on the nominees for the panel. Among those reportedly proposed were some former members of the NWC of the party, but these were discovered to have soft spot for some aspirants.
“It’s been difficult agreeing on those to be members of the panels,” a member of the NWC said in Abuja last Thursday. But another party executive, who pleaded anonymity, last Friday, accused Mr Abubakar of “making mountain out of a molehill.” “We’re doing this thing gradually. We’ve done that of state assemblies and the governorship, which is at the state level and we are about doing that of the national level, which includes the National Assembly and the presidential elections,” the source said.
“You don’t jump on these things anyhow. We are talking about two important components of the general elections and so it is important that we find credible people to do it (screen), people who will not be biased against any aspirant. I think somebody somewhere is trying to be desperate and it is not as if those persons are political neophytes.”
However, investigations revealed that the Atiku Abubakar’s camp cried out allegedly over a plot to disqualify the former vice president from contesting the poll, using the proposed panel. That was the reason the campaign organisation demanded that aspirants should be invited by the party to work out the modalities for the primaries.
Sully Abu, the spokesman of the Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign could not be reached for comments. Ahmed Rufa’i Alkali could also not be reached at press time.